Best Hybrid Sin?

[Kaleban]

I've played a few sins here and there, including the phoenix strike build, trapper, kicker and such, but generally never to high levels. I usually get stuck around Hell Act 2 because I don't really trade for gear, and I tend to lose interest after a while honestly lol. Not a problem with Sins per se, just the game itself.

However, I'm playing now with my brothers and want to play a sin again, as of all the classes and builds, sins just appeal to me the most.

My question is, now that there are the synergies, and tight skillpoints, what type of Sin build is absolutely the best (in terms of survivability and kill speed) long term?

I realize there may be a ladder reset at some point, not to worried about that honestly, and have heard about an upcoming patch that may make re-speccing possible, but that's a different discussion.

I've looked at all of the sin builds here, and the ones that keep catching my eye are the hybrids, especially ones utilizing Blade Fury, kicks and traps altogether. I like to multitask lol.

After reading over the Ninja and Uber builds, I'm just wondering if there's an effective build that makes use of the trap skills, along with high investment in Venom and Shadow Master? I realize that the Uber build does, however it advocates few if any points into the actual traps, with minimal investment only to get a low level Death Sentry for CE.

So I guess the real question becomes, is there a build that can solo the whole game, without traps being simply an afterthought? I really liked ilkori's guide to Dancers and the idea appeals to me greatly, but the sacrifice to Venom, Fade and Shadow Master seems quite severe when trying to also have high level and synergized traps.

And while I plan to play in a group, the others tend to not be all that good, so I'll have to really be good at CC and thus have a stronger character to make up for it.

Here's sort of a "wish-list":

Maxed out Dragon Talon (18-20)
High levels in Fade, possibly maxed out SM and Venom
1 point each in Blade skills, high levels in DS and/or LS

So for Hell Difficulty, what skill levels are viable? I assume a 1 point SM won't take more than a hit or two, whereas to be anywhere near effective, LS would have to be maxed with synergies and +skills.

Should I just consider building a pure trapper, and then a Kicksin with a maxed out DS? I'd like to combine both but I don't think the points are there. I'd rather not have to build two separate sins, but from what I hear, Trapsins can't do Ubers, but excel everywhere else, while Kickers do pretty well everywhere but require some very specific gear. Or is it possible for a "Flashdancer" with the 1 point investment in Shadow Skills to do Ubers? That would be cool.

[mephiztophelez]

i'd go with an ilkori'sin (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=405240)

kick/trappers are great 'toons. with four elements of damage straight out of the box (lit, phys, fire, poison), you'll have little or no difficulty with immunes.

[Kaleban]

Yeah thats what I ended up doing. My only problem is I constantly restart to make the most powerful and fun characters, and in this instance, I'm torn between a hybrid that focuses on traps (maxing out DS and LS with points in synergies) and one that focuses on the Shadow skills (maxing out SM and Venom).

I have a K/T Dancer with sub-par gear, and she tends to get bogged down in Hell difficulty with all the lightning immunes, the Shadow is at 1 point with +skills, so gets killed in relatively short order, and no Venom means no secondary damage. I suppose to make this build truly shine I need a merc with an eth colossus voulge and Infinity, but I'm not rich like that.

So will the kick/shadow focused character be more effective in Hell? I've invested 1 point into the Blade skills, so I have an effective ranged attack. Plus it just looks darn cool flinging ninja stars at high speed lol.

[Sass]

Kick/shadow isn't a hybrid; it's just a pure kicker.


Hybrid refers to trap damage focus, not necessarily another tree. It's like having a pure bowa not use javs, but also neglect passive for the sake of bows. :S

[stephan]

I have a K/T Dancer with sub-par gear, and she tends to get bogged down in Hell difficulty with all the lightning immunes, the Shadow is at 1 point with +skills, so gets killed in relatively short order, and no Venom means no secondary damage. I suppose to make this build truly shine I need a merc with an eth colossus voulge and Infinity, but I'm not rich like that.
If a kick/trapper gets bogged down on LIs you are doing something wrong. Lightning immunes you just kick down and then blow up with DS.

[Kaleban]

Hmm, so perhaps I'm more of a ninja player than a dancer?

I realize that the K/T is very strong, but requires really good gear. My "wealth level" would probably be better served by going pure trap, right now in Hell with my best gear my LS does upwards of 1400 damage. Yeah, teh suck right?

Plus my fear of FE bosses, which seem to be every boss in Hell apparently, makes me nervous of kicking entirely.

I think that perhaps a more melee oriented sin, with kicks and blade fury is more my style, although the benefit of several hard points in DS is DEFINITELY worth the investment. At least that way I can focus on %DR, P/MDR, and resists, all very useful in Hell, and not so much on +skills. In any case, when playing my K/T, it feels like playing an undergeared and underoptimized trapper, and DS usually ends up doing the majority of damage once bodies start to fall.

So really, the cornerstone of any effective Sin build is DS, the rest is just figuring out how to get the initial corpses lol. And in HC, I think a Kicksin with maxed out Fade, Venom, Shadow Master, a Holy Freeze merc, Blade Fury for a spammable ranged attack, and the 1 (or 2) point wonders of CoS and MB is the most survivable and fun to boot!

We'll see I guess. Right now my K/T Dancer who's putting leftover points in CBS for LS/DS synergy is level 74, and my new, more Shadow Skills Sin is level 39 and counting. I looked at the Uber Sin guide, and it seems the build I'm using is following that rather closely, and anything that can relatively survive that part of the game MUST be durable right?

[stephan]

Hmm, so perhaps I'm more of a ninja player than a dancer?
No, if your kicks can't kill anything you are more of a trapper. :p


I realize that the K/T is very strong, but requires really good gear.
Not really. Trading the gear you need is not very expensive; you can make an effective K/T build with pgem value gear.

If you can't make kicks on a kick/trapper kill things, I'm not sure how you are going to make them work on a pure kick build. The difference between the two lies much more in defense than in kick strength.

[Kaleban]

Well its true I don't have any CB gear yet except for 10% Blood Crafted gloves on either, but I did find an Um rune and made a Crescent Moon Phase Blade, so we'll see how that works.

The problem I think is I wanted three things not two: powerful kicks, synergized traps, and a strong shadow/venom. Unfortunately, on my original K/T sin, I wasn't so much having trouble killing everything, its just I pretty much ignored kicking in favor of traps because of their safety.

So because I sank MOST of my points in traps, I rarely used kicks. Just a playstyle thing I guess, I ended up being a sub-optimized trapper with half kicking gear and very few +skills.

The kicksin that focuses on kicks/shadow skills can still sink points into traps like DS and Blade Fury and still make effective use of them. In a sense, both her defense gets stronger (with more points in SM and Fade) and her offense is more powerful (with Venom and DS/Blade Fury). She just turned 45 and I've already noticed a huge difference, without having to focus on +skills gear attacks are much more deadly and even in large player games I'm slaughtering everything with little effort.

We'll see what happens once she reaches Hell, but I figure with some CB somewhere other than the gloves, along with the SF from Crescent, she'll be unstoppable! ;)

[Sass]

If you list gear and skills we can see if she's alright.

Some of the shadow skills are already just one point wonders, so you're free to still have a trap kicker, but if you want to continue as a hybrid, you'll have to start focusing on the kicks; LI's are all too common in Hell.


Cresent is a pretty good weapon, but by cheap and very effective gear, he's talking the "Black" knout rune word, goblin toes, any mana leech ring, etc.

[Kaleban]

Alright, here we go:

MA: 18 DT, 1 in each finisher and DF
Shadow: 1 in all, 2 in MB, no Venom
Traps: Max DS/LS, 3 in FB, rest going into CBS for synergy, no Blade skills

Some of my gear is great, other not so:
Helm - Nat's Helm
Weapon - Switch between Crescent for kicking and Jade Talon for Trap or resists
Shield - Was a Rhyme, but I acquired a Stormshield, not sure whether to socket a Sol rune or PDiamond
Armor - Lionheart in a Mage Plate
Belt - T-God's Vigor or Nos Coil
Gloves - 10% CB Blood Craft
Boots - Rare War Boots, have a Blood Crafted Myrmidon Greaves, need to up my Strength though
Rings - switch between Dwarf Star, couple of rares with leech, no Raven.
Ammy - Rare +1 Sin skills prismatic resists

Charms: I have one +1 Shadow Skills GC, the rest are res/life/mana charms. This one is level 74 atm, with my more kick oriented Sin at 45.

I've noticed that with the kicker, 1 point in DS and Blade Fury/Shield is more than enough with a few +skills, and these skills seem to be very effective. Which means high investment into Venom and Shadow/Fade is possible. On the K/T, so many points go into the Trap tree, that its almost silly to even try kicking, which sort of relegates her to a one-trick pony status.

However, I think if I re-built my K/T sin with the gear I've acquired in mind, I think she could be more effective than just a pure kicker in the majority of the game.

But even with all synergies maxed on a pure trapper, LS maxes out at around 2.5k damage, to really get it up there you need a bunch of +skills gear which means less focus on melee/survival oriented mods, and an Infinity on your merc, which is something well beyond my e-wealth. The annoying thing is how MANY enemies in Hell are LI, which means the 60+ points in Lightning traps are useless unless Infinity is acquired. I see very few PI compared to LI, so I figure its more effective and efficient to ignore Lite traps entirely (except for a few points in DS) and focus more on kicks and Blade Fury.

But if its just my gear that's bad, I do have one mule chock full of pgems, I guess my best bet would be to start trading for some and see how my effectiveness goes? I'd really just like a consensus on which build is going to be more effective in a Hell scenario, or is the Lite trapper part of my build basically a cow runner?

[mephiztophelez]

just one tip on boots for kickers:

one of the "best" mods on both Gores and 'Dancers is the -% requirements. raw myrmidon greaves have a str req of over 200 (208 iirc) and -%reqs isn't available on rare boots.

i'd suggest building for Mirrored boots which will be a marginal decrease in physical kick damage and save you a ton of strength (about 50 points worth). you'll be able to slip straight into up'd gores or dancers (or 2x up'd goblin toes) if you acquire them later without having wasted all that strength.

incidently, Stormshield and up'd gores both have the same 156 str req.

But even with all synergies maxed on a pure trapper, LS maxes out at around 2.5k damage, to really get it up there you need a bunch of +skills gear which means less focus on melee/survival oriented mods, and an Infinity on your merc, which is something well beyond my e-wealth. The annoying thing is how MANY enemies in Hell are LI, which means the 60+ points in Lightning traps are useless unless Infinity is acquired. I see very few PI compared to LI, so I figure its more effective and efficient to ignore Lite traps entirely (except for a few points in DS) and focus more on kicks and Blade Fury.

Infinity is just not "required" on a k/t'sin. where you seem to be seriously lacking is in the Crushing Blow department. i count a whopping 10% in your gear.

a Guillaumes Face helm will solve that issue nicely (a pgem or two in trade on bnet), delivering your first corpse faster and getting the DS howitzer cranking sooner. another tip is to lead LI's back to some corpses you alreasy created and let DS loose on 'em.

a weapon upgrade is also in order. a Black flail is a cheap, cheerful and hell-viable weapon. so is a Strength runeword in a fast claw.

[Kaleban]

Yeah, I noticed the strength similarities, right now I think my strength is around 105 base, and with pluses on the Stormshield and Nos's Coil/T-God's is right around 175.

Yeah, those gloves just don't provide enough CB, I've got a mule full of pgems, may have to start looking for Gores/Guillaume's. But in the weapon department, I'm using a Crescent Moon runeword in a Phase Blade, and while the chain lightning is pretty, the Static Field is awesome. Should I trade that in for a CB weapon like Black or Strength?

[mephiztophelez]

But in the weapon department, I'm using a Crescent Moon runeword in a Phase Blade, and while the chain lightning is pretty, the Static Field is awesome. Should I trade that in for a CB weapon like Black or Strength?

not really. what you should be on the lookout for, is a weapon that has both Crushing Blow AND Static.

it's called a Stormlash, unique scourge.

they are kinda rare (it's very rare they drop actually), however here the dupe economy works in your favour and the 'lash should actually be pretty cheap. you don't care about the %ed (unless your a mad-keen Blade Fury user) and it doesn't need to be eth (again, unless your a mad keen blade fury user).

they are also, hands down, the best weapon you can put on a w/s PvM kick'sin (or a k/t'sin for that matter).

in the interim, get a guilly face helm. voila, CB problems solved,

[Kaleban]

Yeah, I've seen the stats on the 'Lash, and I drool lol. I think since I started playing again, I've seen exactly one white scourge drop, so dunno what my chances are there lol. In regards to trading and the economy, it seems everyone wants ridiculous trades, such as me giving 40 pgems for a 16 Dex Ravenfrost lol.

Looks like its Guillaume's and Gore Rider's that I'll be on the lookout for, realistically speaking.

[hereticseventyeight]

I have had both an eth stormlash and crescent moon to play with on a kicker, while the stormlash is a better weapon, crescent moon isn't far behind and blade fury off it is pretty reasonable due to the ignore target defense mod. Personally I'd strive for upped gores over any other boot, they're perfect for a kicker, giving you more deadly strike for your blades and more crushing blow for your kicks. If you can ever manage to add fortitude to that, the combination is absolutely deadly in pvm, duress is probably second choice, smoke, 3soc nats armor and lionheart also work out pretty nice and easy to come by. Personally I run with max DS, Max Shadow Master, Max Venom.........

Hell yeah!!!!! just as I was checking out my skill tree for this, Uber Diablo walked, got my first anni!!!! Haven't id'd it yet, not sure if I want to, or to trade it off unid'd. Took her to Bishibosh's spot in Cold Plains, She slaughtered him, no problem.

So anyway... Martial Arts: 18dtalon, 1Dflight and prereqs. Shadow Disciplines: Max Venom, Max Shadow Master, 2 Mind blast, one point in all prereqs. Traps: 3 Fire Blast, 20 DS, 1 Blade fury. Any extra points put into Fade or LS. Strength enough for gear, Dex: Enough for max block. Vit: Rest. Energy: Base.

Act1 Merc is probably your best friend, between the two of you, you can deal with doom knights without iron maiden being a worry and the shadow provides tanking services nicely so act 2 merc becomes more a walking aura than a useful tool. She's also great if you hit an area with lot of ranged attackers. Cold vs Fire doesn't matter that greatly, with cold she'll smash an occasional body but not enough to really cause your death sentries to suffer.

Id'd the anni, 14/17/6, not too bad I guess.

Rest of your gear just try get up to max resists, max block, cannot be frozen, 48%fhr, and at least 30% crushing blow (more is better) with your primary weapon equipped and a source of life tap (dracs ideally). CTC on Striking effects also help, static especially. +Skills on switch helps, there's a few options with that. I just run a pair of bartucs cause I had them handy. Check the guides for dtalon breakpoints and make sure you use a gear combination that keeps your kick speed decent. All in all it's a simple build that's not afraid of anything and is decently effective with moderate gear.